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I wish I could have a simple blood test tell me too if you really loved me, but that’s so much harder to figure out…
Brenda swallowed and blinked back the prickling of tears in her eyes. God, she probably was pregnant. She had felt more emotional over the last few weeks. She mostly attributed it to the complete turnaround her life had taken, but maybe it was the hormones already flowing through her.
“It’ll be all right. If you are pregnant, this is what we’ve both been working so hard for,” he said, then grimaced. Jamsheed must have thought about the double entendre. “You know what I mean.”
Before she could reply, the door swung open and a rotund little man with thick glasses slid on in.
“Well,” he started, looking down at his clipboard. “I think that some congratulations are in order, my sheikh. You’re expecting.”
Her shoulders slouched just a bit, not because it wasn’t amazing to have at least this small piece of Jamsheed if she couldn’t have his heart, but because all the mountain of things she had to organize were already starting.
Haley’s never going to let me hear the end of this!
Of course, maybe she didn’t have to explain the heir deal to her daughter. It sounded bad in a lot of ways, made her seem cold somehow or possibly nuts. Yes, maybe just letting Haley think it had all come from the heat of passion was for the best. She couldn’t afford to disappoint her child.
“Are you sure?” Jamsheed asked, his tone serious and his amber gaze focused on the doctor with laser precision. “Is everything normal?”
The doctor frowned a little. “Some of her hormone levels are higher than I would have assumed at first, but nothing to worry about. I think the pregnancy seems to be progressing normally here, and we’ll schedule for your first ultrasound in few weeks. Until then, we’ll get her started on regular blood draws and vitamin supplements. Can never have enough prenatal vitamins, I always say.”
Jamsheed gave a curt nod and eyed her. She wasn’t sure what to do then. She was happy that this was working out for him and for the kingdom, happy that she had a piece of him, but she still felt anxious, as if this was all still so temporary. In a couple years, once the baby was safe and healthy and entering into toddlerhood, Jamsheed could change the deal. He could toss her aside for someone younger and hotter. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened to her.
He turned his attention back to the doctor and gestured with his free hand to the door. “If you could give us a few minutes, please? I just need to speak more freely with the sheikha.”
Her eyes widened at that title as did the doctor’s. Both of them knew what it meant to give her that title; what it meant to elevate her from a slightly unconventional surrogate to the woman who would rule beside him on the throne of Zomelia. Everything had just changed, and it had taken only one word to do it.
The doctor shook himself out of his surprise and bowed low to both of them. “Yes, my sheikh and sheikha. I’ll be outside if you should need anything else.”
Brenda had never seen anyone scurry back out of a door as fast as the doctor did. Quirking her head up at him, Brenda regarded Jamsheed’s golden gaze. “You don’t have to offer me that. It wasn’t part of the deal. I know we’ve only been, uh, ‘dating’ for two months.”
He reached out and stroked her cheek, and she couldn’t resist leaning into the gesture, into letting herself relax into the broad expanse of his warm palm. “I wanted to. We’ve known each other for months before that, for all the time in London. Just because our titles were so different then, didn’t mean I didn’t know you.”
“I think we know each other in the biblical sense now,” she joked.
He kissed her. “Or the Koran-ical sense as well.” Jamsheed winked at his own joke. “Sheikha Brenda Rahal. I like the sound of that. No, I love the sound of it.”
Unbidden, her free hand found its way down her stomach and cupped her still flat abdomen. “I know this might be a lot to plan with your father sick and state business and…”
“What? I can get you anything, phoenix. You only have to ask.”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “One of the things that always bothered Haley most were the names.”
“Huh?”
“The names that kids would call her on the playground to get to her. I don’t want anyone to feel free to gossip about the next heir to the throne. Is it possible to arrange a wedding before I deliver?”
He kissed her again. “Not only is it possible, but I’m going to make it the largest ceremony the country has ever seen, even bigger than what Father did for Mother. This is a happy union and we have to celebrate all of it. I have to let you see how much you mean to me too, phoenix, and not just because you’re with child.”
She let the tears come this time because after all her bad luck, it was impossible to feel like a man loved her too. “I’m just so unsure.”
“I’m not,” he said, kissing her again. “And I will prove it, mark my words.”
